Paul Cezanne

Preview of the auction house's upcoming sales in New York and London. Highlights include Warhol's Liz (Coloured Liz) (above) and Modigliani's Portrait of Oscar Miestchaninoff. Also features works by Picasso, Monet, Cezanne and Bacon.

There's nothing like a holiday for a little learning. I don't mean by enrolling children on one of the many formal courses that schools, universities and learning centres offer through the summer, however good they may be. I mean a real holiday.

The mainland will launch its largest arts exchange programme next month with cities nationwide, including Hong Kong and Macau, staging more than 100 exhibitions and performances over 10 months as part of the $300 million Year of France festival.

The festival will be launched on October 12 during a visit to the mainland by French President Jacques Chirac.

Twenty years ago, Robert O'Brien came to Hong Kong bringing with him the portfolio of a city artist.

Years spent in London, Munich, Athens, and Oslo - where he lived, painted and exhibited amid the concrete walls of sprawling cities - had given his work magnificent, municipal proportions. He specialised in large square canvases, bearing bold colours of the urban environment.